Portland’s Willamette Week has a well-written feature on Cara Tomlinson and Sean Regan’s upcoming film exploring the goings-on at Portland’s Goodwill Outlet.  

If you attended Cara and Sean’s lecture on Creative Collaboration, you were treated to a special preview of this film. See the WW article here: http://wweek.com/editorial/3423/10808.

Be the seeing. Be the thinking. Open your eyes to the world around you and let it wash over you.

 Those are just a few of the many things I took away from Kate Pabst’s lecture. She walked through the timeline of her career, which also closely mirrors the timeline of computer development and design. She described life as a Web designer when no one even knew what the Web was or what graphic design even meant, about being her own boss because she was figuring it out as she went. This really struck a chord with me. She took on jobs and tasks simply because she was curious where it would lead her, and in this she often felt like she had no idea what she was doing. 

I think a lot of people in the technology industry, myself especially included, often feel like they don’t know what they’re doing. Many of us are self-taught, whose jobs by definition are all about finding a new idea, a new challenge, a new way of thinking, so we dive in head first—and hope to God we come out of it with something worthwhile. Kate said life is all about saying “yes” to everything and then figuring out a way to make it happen. It’s a leap of faith. 

One of her eight tenets in life is to be humble, which is interesting, because to really take chances you have to trust yourself enough to let go. To allow yourself to fail. To be curious and walk a path that may dead end. But that’s what creativity is all about: shutting down all the things you hold as True and Fact and really opening your eyes and letting the possibilities flood your vision.

To be the Seeing.

Kristin Wille // Designer

Preparations are in full swing for tonight’s Creative Disruption lecture. Chairs are going up, the kitchen’s stocked with appetizers and the beers and wine are on ice. Kate flew in Tuesday from Minnesota and since then has been checking out the sights of Portland (courtesy of tour guide, QUANGO Creative Director, and onetime collaborator Dave Anolik). 

Earlier in the week, I got an early sneak-preview of Kate’s presentation. Photographically heavy, verbally sparse, frequently irreverent and sweeping in scope (138 slides–preview below), I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t more than a little intrigued.

While the Creative Bridges lectures thus far have been both inspiring and thought-provoking, it’s Kate’s lecture that has really intrigued me since she shared her vision at a much earlier stage of development.

P.S. The RSVP list is telling me we’ll have a quite full (and diverse-talented) house, so be sure arrive early and share some time with excellent Portland creatives, students, artists, and the typical QUANGO weirdos.   

Also, here’s some sample visuals from the presentation:

A little teaser…

A little more of a teaser…

And finally, this. Hope to see you tonight.

 Tom Briggs // Content Manager